The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-01
SOME MINING STORIES,
QUEER TALES ABOUT MINE PI,AC-
ING AND MINE SELLING.

,suuer (Cot) Letter to the st. Lonjs C,Jobo
Democrat
The ride from Kansas City to Denver is
the dullest, busiest, hottest and most tira-
some at this time of the year, that it is nos
sible to imagine The distance is $40 Mills
by the Union Pacific, and civilization is
strung out so thinly aid at such wide intar-
walls that the trip has a desert flavor and
with the thermometer ranging from 90 to
100, and with the cars crowded to the last
platform of the train, there is little comfort
and less enjoyment in it than in anvtbing
else that | know of. But the Journey was,
to an appreciable degree, enlivened by some
stories told by men concerned in one wav
or another with Colorado mining. Tbesa
stories will interest st. Louisans. for thew
involve some of the mine-buying and mine
stocking talent of the Future Great. They
will, of course, have no effect upon lepiti
mate trading in mines which is carried ON
to such large extent i'll st. Louis, but they
will serve as pleasant Illustrations of the
reckless and extravagant ways in which
many people have been led to invest IN
"holes in the ground" without giving the
subject any consideration whatever. or al
lowing their discretion to guide them. as thew
would in other business ventures. The cause
of this rash and impetuous dash for fortune
is thoroughly appreciated by the genuine
Westerner, who keeps cool and resists i'm
pulse under the most shining or irving cir
cumstanceS. He knows all about the Gran
tie Mountain strike, and to the millions
there suddenly exposed aScribes the mad
rush of the thousands over the brink of
speculation in the chasm of disappointment
and despair. And the WeSterner never fails
to make this simple explanation to every
st. Louisan he meets. l have had it dinged
into my ears thousand times since ar
rived in Denver, and it was during the pre-
lminary dinging on the trip West that |
provoked a few story-tellers to unbos0m
themselves and drew out torrent of bust
ed bonanza lore that propose to repour into
this column for the delectation of the read
ers of the Gt0be-Democrdt.
PLACING MINES.
"You are from st. Louis. are youm a
gentleman asked, who is a superintendent
of a prosperous mine near Georgetown.
YES" answered as meekly as | knew
how.
"Well, you came from a great mine mar
ket, said the gentleman; ''and your citi
zens own some very fine properties; but say,
st. Louisans must be the worst lot of I'M
peeled suckers that a grub-staker or tunnel
worker ever ran across. They tell me it's
as easy to place a mine in st. Louis as it is
to catch the cholera in Constantinople when
an epidemic is hourishing there All a man
has got to do is to land in the town with
map of prairie dog hole, or some kind of
two-days-old excavation, and go around
with a subscription paper, and if he starts
out early in the morning, he can have his
document full of names and his pockets
full of money before night | have
heard that it is only necessary to make
a success of such a scheme to get
some big broker or banker or some
prominent citizen with a reputation
for driving hard bargains or making
careful investments to head the
list of ZOO shares and then the mine-placer
is thoroughly equipped and his fortune is
assured. Mind have only picked up this
statement 1t seems to be a part of the
reputation which St Louis has acquired in
this direction since she became a mine mar
ket. | know myself of a case in which a
mine was placed where the placer had no
other recommendation than general sort
of letter of introduction. His mine was
located in Ouray county, and nothing was
known about either it or him until he
began to push it in St. Louis His
letter of Introduction was from the Chair
man of the Republican County Committee
Of Gunnison county, Col. and on the strength
of this writing, without a sample of ore,
certificate of assay or location, or anything
else, he succeeded in a very short time in
selling his property for $4,000 1t was
stocked, of course, and the Lord only knows
how many hundred people now hold the
stock"
OLD TOM JOHNS.
"You have heard of old Tom Johnsm
another Westerner broke in. what! not
heard of old Tom Johns-the old fellow that
ho i,Iv oh
son when Com. Decatur was showing her
over the mountains, near Georgetown
Well I'll tell you. Tom Johns took the
st. Louis and Boston folks in in good style,
and has made more money selling mines,
which nobody has ever seen or heard of,
than any man in Western history. He sold
mine in St Louis for 100000 that paid
$4,000 dividends in two years.
He, paid the dividends himself,
them he just quit, and believe the owners
of that mine have been looking for it ever
since. | don't suppose old Tom himself
knew where 1T was--or cared either
POOLING A BOSTON SYNDICATE.
"He broke one family in Boston, Tom
did, and got 100000 out of a syndicate at
the Hub that were the worst-fooled lot Of
money-bags that ever struck Colorado.
This syndicate, or it may be only delega-
ton of them, came West to see the mine for
which they had paid their money, and OF
which Tom gave them an account ten times
more glowing than the Book of Revelations.
When Tom got word that they were ell
route he was not worried in the least. He
hlred big house up in the mountains just
beyond Georgetown, some kind of hotel
think 1T was, and he got servants and
groceries and champagne and all necessary
arrangements to furnish first-class enter
talnment. He met them at Denver and es-
corted them the rest of the way The party
were tired and they stood the entertaining
three or four days; at the end of that time
Old Tom took them out apiece and up bit
ana pointing to row of stakes driven in
the snow, said:
-, There she is, gentlemen. Right under
Them stakes, which have had put there by
surveyor, just over my stakes in the
ground, is your mine. You can't see itnow
because the SHOWS on it, but when the snow
goes she'll be all hunky, and you can bet it's
a bonanza
That's all the Boston syndicate ever saw
OF their mine, which was located on Gothic
feak, think. Those stakes in the snow
cost them 100000, Old Tom Johns was q
dandy for placing mines St Louisans will
iecollect him and so will Bostonians il they
near or read his name. | don't know where
he IS now, or what has become of him, but
guess he is comfortably located somewhere
enjoying the fortune he made in mining
winch Is all the more astonishing as he was
never known in the mining region as any
bhlng more than ay-lab0rer.h